023 The Importance Of Knowing What You Don’t Know - CHRIS BECKETT talks about Poetry, Haiku and Ethiopia

CHRIS BECKETT was born in the UK and during his early childhood was brought up in Ethiopia. Ever since, he has had an ongoing cultural relationship with the country and its people through poetry. This year, Chris has published a book of poems reflecting his childhood and his perceptions of the country at this young age entitled Tenderfoot. He has also, in collaboration with exiled journalist and poet Alemu Tebeje, published the first ever anthology of Ethiopian Amharic Poetry entitled Songs We Learn From Trees.

Chris and his artist partner Isao Miura collaborated on a wonderful project entitled Sketches from the Poem Road which is their visual and poetic interpretation of Matsuo Basho's classic The Narrow Road To The Deep North of which they were shortlisted for the Ted Hughes award in 2015.

Enjoy the wonderful podcast chat I have with Chris about poetry, translation, Ethiopia, Japan, haiku, food and everything else in between!

You can reach Chris at https://www.chrisbeckettpoems.com/ and also http://www.tamratbooks.com/

He is published through Carcanet Press https://www.carcanet.co.uk/index.shtml

Chris' partner, artist Isao Miura is at https://www.isaomiura.com/

Some of the POETS/WRITERS Chris refers to: Tamar Yoseloff, Alemu Tebeje, James Baldwin, Ephrem Seyoum, Daljit Nagra, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Kenji Miyazawa, Shuntarō Tunikawa, Ted Hughes, Ezra Pound, Honore de Balzac, Voltaire Linton Kwesi Johnson, John Agard, Ben Zephaniah, Lemn Sissay, Zewdu Milikit; Jack Kerouac.

Musician and Singer: Haymanot Tesfa: @haymanottesfamusic.

To find out about your podcast host Emma you can go to https://www.travellingthrough.co.uk/

A big thanks to Mariska Martina at https://www.mariskamartina.com/ for creating our wonderful podcast jingle!

And finally, a big thanks to Chris Beckett and Isao Miura for hosting this week's podcast - and for the delicious Ethiopian coffee :)